The Found-Abstract Art of Comets, 1867

JF Ptak Science Books Quick Post

Some of the most interesting Found-Art images in the history of science belong to astronomy, and within that, some of the most expressive and least-populated images of great appeal and haunting beauty are for early images of comets. And so it goes for this ("tinted") engraving of Biela's Comet, which illustrated an article by London-born W.T. Lynn (at the time with the Royal Observatory, Greenwich) which was published in the April, 1867 issue of The Intellectual Observer. The comet was named for Wilhelm von Biela who discovered the periodic nature of the comet (6.6 years, it had been identified as early as 1772), and had disappeared by the 1850's, but not before breaking up into at least two large pieces, which is what we are looking at below:

And the full image:

Notes on Lynn (1835-1911) for his time at Greenwich is available at their website: http://www.royalobservatorygreenwich.org/articles.php?article=1109 Also: his obituary in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society here: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/full/1912MNRAS..72R.249.